Iraq was a pioneer country in the Middle in terms of scholarships.Tens of thousands of Iraqi students were sent abroad, particularly to the U.K. and the U.S. to get higher degrees in the early decades of the last century.Iraq had more Ph.D. degree holders
than any other country in the world in proportion to its population.But when former President Saddam Hussein assumed full power in the early 1980s and started his war with Iran and increased his iron grip of the population, many Iraqi students refused to return after obtaining their degrees abroad.Tens of thousands of highly qualified Iraqi professionals fled abroad.Jabbar said the aim of the large number of scholarships was to invest Iraqis’ scientific capabilities for the interests of their own country.He said it has never happened in Iraq’s history for so many students to be sent abroad for learning in one year.
